National Historic Landmark

The wash room at the laundry and machine shop building at Hancock Shaker Village in 1931. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The room in 2023:

This room is located on the first floor of the laundry and machine shop at Hancock Shaker Village. It was here that women in the Shaker community would wash garments and other cloth items, which would then be brought upstairs to dry. From there, the dry clothes would be returned to the first floor, where other women would iron them in the adjacent ironing room.

Although today they are often conflated with the Amish, the Shakers were not opposed to technology. On the contrary, Shaker communities are generally credited with a number of important technological advances during the 19th century, including developing early washing machines. Part of this was because the communal nature of the Shaker villages. Because they all lived and worked together, they could take advantage of economies of scale and develop machinery that would not be practical for most individual families.

Here in Hancock, the laundry facilities were located on the west side of this building, which housed the machine shop on the east side. Both the laundry and the machine shop utilized the same water source, with a turbine that powered the machinery here. This made the laundry much more efficient than washing everything by hand, which helped keep up with the needs of the community that, during the mid-19th century, had several hundred members.

The first photo was taken in 1931, when the Shaker community was still active here. As shown in the photo, the floor of the room was marble, which slope upward at the walls. There are also several drain holes in the floor. The equipment in the first photo includes a washing machine in the distance against the far wall, which appears to have been powered by the water turbine via a belt.

The Shaker community here in Hancock ultimately closed in 1960 amid declining numbers, and many of the buildings have since been preserved Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum. The laundry and machine shop building is still standing, although the equipment here in the wash room is somewhat different from the first photo. This may have been done in order to interpret the room as it would have looked during an earlier time period, since most of the items here appear to date back to the 19th century. Overall, though, it is still easily recognizable from the first photo, and it provides a good illustration of how the Shakers utilized technology in order to meet the needs of their communities.

The ironing room at the laundry and machine shop building at Hancock Shaker Village in 1931. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The scene in 2023:

As with the previous post, these two photos show the ironing room, which is located on the western side of the laundry/machine shop at Hancock Shaker Village. It is probably the oldest surviving building at the village, dating back to about the time that the Shakers settled here around 1790. For many years, this half of the building was the laundry facility for the Shaker community here, and it included a wash room and an ironing room on the first floor, and drying rooms on the upper floors.

This Shaker community ultimately closed in 1960, and the property was subsequently preserved as Hancock Shaker Village. This open-air museum features a number of historic buildings, including the laundry/machine shop, as shown here. The first photo was taken more than 90 years ago, when the site was still an active Shaker community, and since then there has been some restoration work to this room, including different furnishings and a different stove. Overall, though, it is still easily recognizable from the first photo, and the current layout shows the stoves where the irons were heated, as well as the large tables where articles of clothing and other cloth items were ironed.

The ironing room at the laundry and machine shop building at Hancock Shaker Village in 1931. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The room in 2023:

Life in a Shaker community was not for everyone, as it involved giving up personal property and living a celibate lifestyle in a communal setting where hard work was seen as a core value. However, those who joined the community did enjoy some practical benefits, particularly when it came to economies of scale. Because of their size, the Shakers could utilize larger, more efficient facilities than what a typical family of the time period had.

Here at the Shaker village in Hancock, Massachusetts, this included a large laundry facility, which occupied three stories on the western side of the laundry/machine shop building. This is probably the oldest surviving building at the village, with the original portion of the building—here on the western side—likely dating back to around the time that the community was established in 1790. It was probably originally a dwelling, but it was subsequently used as a laundry and as a machine shop. These two facilities shared the same building and water power source, but they were otherwise separate. In keeping with Shaker beliefs, men and women had separate workspaces, with the men working in the machine shop and the women here in the laundry.

On the ground floor, the laundry included two main rooms. One room was for washing, where the equipment was powered by a water turbine. From there, the laundry went upstairs to dry on drying racks, and then came back downstairs to this room, where it was ironed. Here, the clothing and other items were ironed on the large tables, using irons that were heated on the stoves in the room.

The Shaker community was still active when the first photo was taken in 1931, although its numbers were much smaller compared to a century earlier. They eventually closed in 1960, but the site subsequently became Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum. It features a number of restored Shaker buildings that are open to the public, including the laundry and machine shop, as shown here in the second photo.

The Laundry and Machine Shop at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The building in 2023:

These two photos show the same building as the ones in the previous post, but from the opposite side of the building. This is probably the oldest surviving building at Hancock Shaker Village, dating back to about 1790, around the same time that the Shaker community was established here. It had a variety of uses over the years, but it was primarily a machine shop on the east side (in the foreground in this scene), and a laundry on the west side. These workspaces, like other aspects of Shaker society, were segregated by gender. As a result, while the two facilities shared the same building and water source, the men worked only in the machine shop, and the women in the laundry.

The Shaker community was still active when the first photo was taken in 1939, although its numbers were much smaller than they had been a century earlier. The community eventually closed in 1960, and in 1961 the property became Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum featuring many historic buildings, including this. Aside from a different paint color and the open area on the ground floor in the foreground, this building has not changed much in appearance since the first photo was taken.

The Laundry and Machine Shop at Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, in 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey Collection.

The building in 2023:

This building is probably the oldest surviving building here at the Hancock Shaker Village. The earliest portion of the building, here in the foreground on the northwestern side, is said to date back to about 1790, around the same time that the Shaker community was established here. It may have originally been used as a dwelling, but it has seen a number of alterations and changes in use over the years. By the 1830s the east side of the ground floor, on the left side of the building from this angle, was a machine shop, which was powered by an overshot water wheel. This was later improved with the installation of a water turbine, and at some point in the 19th century the west side of the building was used for laundry.

Shaker communities were segregated by gender, and this included not only separate living areas but also separate workspaces. In this case, both men and women worked in this building, where the machine shop and laundry equipment were both powered by the same water power source. However, these two facilities were otherwise separate, with men working in the machine shop and women in the laundry.

When the first photo was taken in 1939, this site was still an active Shaker community, although its numbers had seen significant decline since its peak of around 300 members in the 1840s. The photo was taken as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), a federal program that began during the Great Depression as a way of providing work for unemployed people while also documenting historic properties around the country. According to the written documentation that accompanied the photo, the machine shop on the east side was not restored, but that the west side was in the process of being restored to its use as a laundry facility. The survey also included line drawings, which indicate that the ground floor of the west side was used for washing laundry, while the two upper floors were for drying.

The Shaker community here ultimately closed in 1960, and a year later the site became Hancock Shaker Village, an open-air museum that has preserved many of the historic buildings on the property. Today, the laundry and machine shop building is still standing here, and the only significant difference is the paint color. It was white in the first photo, but it is now painted a more traditional red color, which was commonly used by Shakers during their heyday in the 19th century.